Qualitative analysis

I've just realised that I could use NVivo, could have been using NVivo, to extract and analyse data from my literature review.

Why did no-one point that out before?

• Because supervisors don't need to know much about software and aren't going to point their students at it.
• Because there isn't training in using software, but training that is either about the product (e.g. Word, NVivo, Endnote) or about the process, and not how to integrate the two.

The best integration the OU has provided in the last two years was through the Professional Academic Communication in English sessions (PACE) when one of the lecturers explained how she'd used Endnote to keep notes and print them off or insert them in Word.

Here are slides that discuss the training issue, from the 2006 ESRC research methods festival. And here's a paper from Silvana di Gregorio on using NVivo to analyse literature for the review. And here's a discussion on qualitative data analysis.